Written communication among people provides many opportunities for misunderstandings, conflicts and lost opportunities because of the lack of non-textual visual, tonal and often contextual clues. One primary reason for this is that written communication is typically between parties who are physically remote from one another, and therefore do not have the benefit of hearing vocal intonations or seeing one another's body language during the communication. Without these non-textual clues, the communicating parties must attempt to interpret one another based only upon the text as it appears, often complete with typographical errors, ambiguity and vagueness. These problems can be compounded by a lack of skill in writing.
Although traditional paper letters sent by mail or fax usually receive a reasonable degree of care and attention from their authors, today many important written messages use instantaneous modes of communication which encourage rapid, “spur of the moment” correspondence. Examples of such types of communication include electronic mail (e-mail), text messaging via Short Message Service (SMS) or other systems, as well as through various network based media on the Internet or otherwise, including online chat systems and social media websites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, among others. Such communications are typically composed quickly, with little planning or attention to detail, and are often written in an informal style.
Not surprisingly, a recipient of such written correspondence may misunderstand the meaning or intention of the author, which can require additional written correspondence or telephone conversations to resolve. In some cases, relationships can be damaged where a recipient perceives an insult where none was intended. Even where this is not the case, the wrong choice of words in responding to correspondence may fail to motivate the sender to take the action that the responder wants. Coupled with the fact that many people receive dozens or even hundreds of e-mail and text messages a day, there is enormous potential for miscommunication and missed opportunity.
Beginning in the 1970s, a field known as “neurolinguistics” began to develop. According to neurolinguistic theory, people do not choose the words they use accidentally; the language a person uses is an indication of how they are thinking One development in neurolinguistics was the identification of “meta programs” describing how a person thinks, gets motivated and makes decisions. Initially, approximately 60 meta programs were identified; Rodger Bailey divided a subset of these meta programs into motivation traits and working traits. Motivation traits are the patterns that indicate what a person needs to get motivated and stay motivated, and working traits describe the internal mental processing that a person uses in a particular situation. Further research determined that meta programs were not a fixed representation of a person's personality, cognition or psychology, but instead shifted based on the context. The meta programs might be quite different if a person were at work, doing grocery shopping, worrying about a particular problem or lying on a beach. It was also determined that the language a person used in communication is an indicator of the operative meta programs at the time of that communication.
Thus, a meta program is an example of what is referred to herein as a “cognitive motivation orientation”, which refers to factors, patterns and/or elements that describe how a person thinks, becomes motivated and makes decisions in a given context, as determined from the language used in that context. One or more cognitive motivation orientations may be expressed within a given communication, and these reflect how the author thinks, becomes motivated and makes decisions in the context in which the communication originated. A cognitive motivation orientation is therefore different from a personality profile or psychological profile in that a cognitive motivation orientation relates to a particular context, whereas a personality profile or psychological profile attempts to provide an overall characterization of an individual.
Importantly, it has also been determined that how people react to certain types of language is related to the operative cognitive motivation orientation. Knowledge of a person's operative cognitive motivation orientation could therefore be used to predict and influence that person's behavior. Using language appropriate to the operative cognitive motivation orientation can create a positive impact while using incorrect language can easily trigger a negative reaction. A detailed discussion is provided in the book “Words That Change Minds—Mastering the Language of Influence” by Shelle Rose Charvet, a co-inventor hereof, published by Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 4050 Westmark Drive, Dubuque, Iowa 52002, Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 97-70788, ISBN 978-0-7872-3479-9, the teachings of which are hereby incorporated by reference (all rights reserved).
A trained individual can, through judicious observation of a person's use of language, determine which cognitive motivation orientations are operative for the person in that context. It also takes training to be able to choose the correct words, phrases and actions to influence people based on their operative cognitive motivation orientations. These cognitive motivation orientations operate largely outside of a person's normal awareness, as few people think about how they are thinking from moment to moment. Even with training to identify the specific indicators in language structures or behaviors, one's ability to objectively, correctly identify the cognitive motivation orientations can easily be colored by one's own unconscious preferences or dislikes. People often use trial and error strategies, which take time, and in high-speed day-to-day communication, this means opportunities to have a positive impact can easily be lost. Moreover, a human being, even a highly-trained one, would not be able to identify cognitive motivation orientations quickly, objectively and consistently because of inherent biases.